Detroit Free Press Education Writer

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One last Facebook status update capped a bizarre night of terror in central Michigan during which police say a prison parolee abducted a college student at gunpoint, raped her, set fire to a house, stole a flatbed truck and rammed three police cars.

“Well folkes im about to get shot. Peace.”

That was the message Eric Ramsey posted from his cell phone to his Facebook page apparently just moments before he was shot to death by a police officer, ending a crime spree that started in Mt. Pleasant and stretched 85 miles north to the Grayling area.

“I’ve been in this community for 35 years,” said Central Michigan University Police Chief Bill Yeagley. “I don’t remember anything like this.”

Police said it started around 9:30 p.m. Wednesday as a senior from the Grand Rapids area walked to her Ford Escape, which was parked in a lot just outside the Student Activities Center in the middle of CMU’s Mt. Pleasant campus.

As she got near her car, the woman was approached by Ramsey, who brandished a gun and forced her into her SUV, police said.

He directed her to drive to a house just off campus, on South Crawford Street, where she was bound and raped. Police said the house was owned by Ramsey’s mother, with whom he had been living.

Ramsey -- who was paroled last summer after serving a five-year prison stint for felonious assault -- then got the victim back in the SUV, along with two cans of gas. As they drove down the road, he told her he was going to kill her, the woman later told police.

She jumped out and ran to a nearby house on South Mission Road, where she pounded on the door and was let inside by three children.

James Persyn III, 14, told the Free Press that he, his sister, Acelin, 11, and his 2-year-old brother, Angus, were home alone Wednesday night when they heard banging at the front door and a woman’s cries for help.

"She was saying, 'Help me! Please let me in. Help! Help!,' " James said. "I let her in, and she asked me if my parents were home. I told her no. She said, 'We’ve got to hide. I was just kidnapped, and I’ve just jumped out of a vehicle. We’ve got to hide now.' "

James said he grabbed his hunting knife from his bedroom and told his siblings and the woman to go in the bathroom. He stood by the bathroom door while the others went in the bathtub.

Everyone but Angus was crying, James said.

"You were just afraid for your life. You didn’t know if you were going or live or not," James said.

The woman called 911, and then James called his father, who had left to pick up his stepmother from a nearby store and pizza shop where she worked. He rushed home.

James said the woman said she had a broken arm from jumping out of the vehicle. She had clear packaging tape on her arms, and James said he helped her remove it.

Meanwhile, police said, Ramsey poured gasoline around the house and lit it on fire. He then took off.

Officers responded quickly. The father also showed up. The fire was put out.

Meanwhile, Ramsey, 30, was headed north.

About 2:50 a.m., State Police investigated a suspicious vehicle in a parking lot in Gaylord. The vehicle -- the victim’s SUV -- rammed the troopers’ car three times, “rendering it inoperable,” State Police said in a release.

The SUV drove off. State Police followed the vehicle’s tracks to an elk ranch, owned by the City of Gaylord. The tracks went through an enclosure at least 8 feet high.

Troopers, now on foot, went about a mile into the ranch before finding the SUV stuck in the snow.

They followed footprints to Arrow Sanitation, where they found vehicle tracks leading out. They put out a description for a possible stolen truck.

About 4:15 a.m., troopers were parked just north of Frederic, when a 1-ton flatbed truck came up behind them without headlights on and smashed into their patrol vehicle. The truck then turned around and rammed a Crawford County sheriff’s car, causing the vehicles to get wedged together. The deputy, after being briefly pinned inside, got out and fatally shot Ramsay as he sat in the cab, authorities said.

The victim is safe and with her family, police said.

“I believe she made all the right choices,” Yeagley said. “She’s the true hero in this.”

Meanwhile, the campus community is on edge, several students said.

“It’s just the randomness of it right on campus that has everyone upset,” said sophomore Mary Williams, 19, of Detroit.

CMU police are working hard to reassure the community, Yeagley said. CMU offers escorts for students at night, more than 15,000 last semester.

“We want them to feel safe as they travel campus,” Yeagley said. “This is not something any of us would expect to happen on our campus.”

Police said Ramsey told the victim he randomly picked her.

Ramsey had a violent history.

He served a five-year prison term from July 2007 to July 2012 on an assault with the intent to cause great bodily harm less than murder charge. He had previous convictions for malicious destruction of fire department or police property, assaulting, resisting/obstructing a police officer, and assault with a dangerous weapon.

The parole board let him out at his minimum sentence time, Michigan Department of Corrections spokesman Russ Marlan said. During his time in several Michigan prisons, he was classified as a minimum security prisoner. He had six minor misconduct tickets during his time -- not enough to increase his security ranking, Marlan said.

He served his last three months at a boot camp outside Chelsea in Washtenaw County.

After he was released, he was living with his mother.

He wore a tether, which allowed authorities to check to make sure he was in by his curfew, Marlan said. The tether was removed Nov. 9, and Ramsey had to check in with his parole office twice a month.

“Get off tether on the 9th b-day on the 12th,” he wrote on his Facebook wall Oct. 24.

His last check-in occurred Jan. 8. He passed a Breathalyzer test and a drug test, as he had the entire parole process. He was employed in a full-time job and following all the conditions of his parole, Marlan said.

Police still are searching for answers on why Ramsey committed the crime.

“We don’t know what possessed him to do that. We may never find out,” Isabella County Sheriff Leo Mioduszewski said.